Food Trust

What does food trust mean for Australia?

Australia’s food system has grown and evolved over hundreds of years. It is a system that’s served Australians well and underpinned much of our economic prosperity.

But it’s a system at risk. And nowhere is the threat larger or more real than in the domain of food fraud.

This is at a time when Australia should be laying the foundations for a food economy that can achieve even higher value in the minds and stomachs of the growing Asian middle class consumer.

We want to help Australian food to deliver on its promises in a way that survives beyond our borders and as close to the end consumption of the product as possible. Whatever the promise of the food is, be it organic Angus beef from the Hunter Valley, or native jarrah honey from Albany - we want to help Australian food producers deliver on and capture the value of its promise.

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PwC's Food Trust Platform

PwC are currently working with key clients to develop PwC's Food Trust Platform, a fully integrated and trusted exports platform. The Food Trust Platform allows businesses and consumers alike to have confidence in their food and where it came from. It compiles authentic data, tracked via unique invisible tags, from across the commodity supply chain to track and trace food products from paddock to plate. For the first time consumers will have direct access to and confidence in the supply information of their food.

Our solution provides Australian producers with a way to prove to consumers their products are genuine at point of sale. It will also improve the consumer experience by providing an augmented reality experience that gives more information about the food they're eating than ever before. For our clients, the Food Trust Platform provides producers with market data about their consumers that to date they have not been able to capture.

The Facts

Trust

Some of the meat seized dated back to the 1970s and had been thawed and refrozen over and over before reaching consumers. Australia has been relatively immune from the contaminated food scandals that plague the industry globally. But with the journey from paddock to plate longer than ever, our reputation as a clean, sustainable and safe food producer now mostly sits outside our control. We must take steps to fortify the integrity of our most important industries.

Fraud

Fraud

When we compare the annual cost of food fraud to the $45 billion value of Australian agriculture and food exports the scale of the danger becomes apparent.

Empower

Empower

An average loss of 294 Australian farmers a month, over the three decades to 2011 doesn’t sit well with estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that by 2050 food production worldwide must increase by 70 per cent for the global population to have sufficient access to safe, nutritious food. We must attract, retain, empower and better resource our people, our future farmers in ways that further this vital industry. Source: Trends in Australian Agriculture, Productivity Commission (2005).

China

China

It’s estimated that there are around 40,000 ‘daigou’ in Australia making anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 every year buying vitamins and dairy products and shipping them to China on the grey market. Daigou sellers have created an industry around giving certainty to the supply chain - in short, they are selling trust.